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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28278588">a tale of Shadow</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icej/pseuds/Icej'>Icej</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sharing Tongues [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Warriors - Erin Hunter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Clan Culture, Clan life, Gen, ShadowClan, Shadowclan elder, Storytime, adorable kits, grumpycat - Freeform, stories, the grumpiest, tw: canon typical descriptions of disability, tw: mentions of canon typical violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:28:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,684</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28278588</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icej/pseuds/Icej</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Aren’t Elders supposed to tell stories?” asked a particularly brave and thus particularly dumb kit.</p><p>“No,” growled the big, grumpy elder. “An elder’s job is to complain about achy joints. It’s what they keep us around for.”</p><p>Or: a Shadowclan elder tells a story.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sharing Tongues [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1412473</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a tale of Shadow</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Once upon a time in Shadowclan, there was a big, grumpy elder that no cat liked to talk to. He had huge ears and long fangs and sharp claws and a mass of matted, unkempt fur. “Elder, it’s time for your wash,” the apprentices would say, and he would spit at them. “Elder, you can’t go on cursing at the young,” the clan mothers would say, and he would curse at them instead. “Elder, this has gone on long enough,” the unimpressed medicine cat would say, and he would start a staring contest with him and absolutely destroy him in a silent but deadly battle of wills. “Elder, I order you to treat your clanmates with a bare minimum amount of feline decency,” the leader would (also) say. But the leader was an idiot.</p><p>One day a gaggling of adorable, fluffy kits too young to know better ran to the grumpy cat. “Elder, we want a story!” they squealed, clambering all over him.</p><p>The elder glared at every single one of them as if they were gross little bugs. “Go pick on someone your own size,” he growled fearsomely.</p><p>“We want to hear a story about Shadowstar!” mewled the fluffy gaggling. The kits had just learned that Shadowstar had, in fact, existed a long, long, <em>long, LONG</em> time ago and they were very excited. </p><p>“Aren’t Elders supposed to tell stories?” asked a particularly brave and thus particularly dumb kit.</p><p>“No,” growled the big, grumpy elder. “An elder’s job is to complain about achy joints. It’s what they keep us around for.”</p><p>“Why do you stink?” asked a kit with big and empty moon-eyes.</p><p>“That’s because I don’t wash,” said the elder. </p><p>“Aren’t Elders supposed to like kits?” asked another kit.</p><p>“No. Didn’t your mothers tell you. Elders actually eat kits.” There was an expectant pause. The kits seemed confused. “Look at my sharp claws,” hissed the elder, “and my long fangs. I’ll slit your stomach and eat your tiny little intestines.” And he clawed at them, but the kits thought it was a hilarious game. </p><p>“Tell us a story about Shadowstar!” they screamed again, and the elder felt like his head had been cracked open like a robin’s egg.</p><p>“Shut up!” he snarled.</p><p>“If you don’t tell us a story we’ll scream again,” said a rather cunning kit. This one was going places.</p><p>“If you tell us a story,” added another kit, “we’ll leave you alone.” He was lying. If the elder told a story the kit would come back for another one.</p><p>Then the kits all clambered all over the elder and tickled his nose.</p><p>“Fine,” the elder sneezed even as he was attempting to growl. “Which story.” The kits looked mystified. The elder felt his headache growing stronger. “Shadowstar had nine lives,” he prompted. “Which life do you want to hear about.”</p><p>“Shadowstar had nine lives?!”</p><p>“The ninth!”</p><p>“How much is nine?”</p><p>“The first!”</p><p>“The fifth!”</p><p>“…” said one of the kits. This kit had opinions.</p><p>“Fine,” growled the elder, “I’ll tell you a story about Shadowstar’s sixth life.” And he sneezed.</p><p>“That’s not what we asked for,” a kit quite reasonably pointed out.</p><p>“But that’s still what you’ll get,” glowered the elder. “Now shut up and listen. First of all, you have to know that back then kits were never allowed to disturb elders. Never. Kits weren’t even allowed to talk to elders, or to breathe in front of them.”</p><p>“How times have changed,” said one kit as she jumped on the grumpy cat’s tail. He clawed at the kit but she rolled out of the way like a fat bird.</p><p>“Ugh,” said the elder.</p><p>“You’re too old for clawing,” said another kit. </p><p>“I’ll show you clawing,” growled the elder.</p><p>The kit fluffed up like a huge ball of pine needles and flashed her tiny teeth. “FIGHT ME.” </p><p>There was a silent but tense staring contest. Eventually the kit blinked and the elder felt a modicum of triumph. “In her sixth life, Shadow was pretty damn busy,” he said because now he had defeated a minuscule kit the story could totally continue. “There were a lot of battles happening, rogues to destroy, clans to overrun and drive screaming out of their mamas’ nests, you know the shtick. Except there was this one cat who was terrible at battling.”</p><p>“How bad?” asked a very small kit who looked like he would be bad at battling later in life, probably.</p><p>“Very bad,” said the elder. “Terrible. I can’t overstate or even describe how bad it was. Once, they ended up biting their own forepaw just like this,” he growled, snapping his jaws at the kits. </p><p>The kits squealed. Two of them panicked and ended up running straight into his stomach, which was obviously the wrong direction. The elder kicked them away. “No trespassing.”</p><p>“It’s not trespassing if you piss on the right trees,” said one of the kits.</p><p>“Elementary logic doesn’t make you any more endearing,” hissed the elder.</p><p>“Why couldn’t the cat who sucked at fighting just hunt instead?” wondered a kit. “Hunting is pretty useful.”</p><p>“No,” growled the elder. “Back then it was official policy that warriors were only allowed to hunt at midday and within three foxlengths of the best sunning spot. Otherwise the kits did all the hunting.”</p><p>“That doesn’t make sense,” protested a kit.</p><p>“Life doesn’t make sense,” snorted the elder. “Back to the story. The cat was so useless at fighting they eventually got mauled by some warrior and then was crippled for life. They had a limp and achy joins and lost his tail and wound up being hopeless at hunting as a consequence. All they did was lie around camp and moan so loud other cats couldn’t sleep. Bad stuff.”</p><p>“It’s kind of tragic he didn’t die in battle,” mused a kit. </p><p>“Yeah, that would have been cooler than just being, I dunno, a waste of resources,” added another.</p><p>“That’s not the point of the story,” said the elder flatly. “If that was the point of the story, then we would all just be dead because nobody would care about us and we would be rogues and have an even shittier life.”</p><p>“Does a story have to have a point though?” asked a kit. “I’m sure that a good ending is traditionally supposed to bring out the themes in the story in order to teach impressionable young cats what they need to know about clan life, but the whole moralizing side of it really does seem stifling.”</p><p>“Yes, my creative side dies a little inside every time I think about what passes for storytelling in this clan,” growled the elder. “What’s more dismaying is that I’ve told many a story about obedience to dumb young cats in my time and I still haven’t found the secret to getting kits to permanently shut up and stop whining, so here I am.” </p><p>“I don’t follow,” said one of the kits.</p><p>“Try and focus,” said the elder.</p><p>“I’m easily distractible,” replied the kit. </p><p>The elder glowered. “”I’ll tell you things so horrible you’ll never be able to focus on anything else ever again. Your mentor won’t be able to teach you to crouch and you’ll never learn how to hunt.”</p><p>“Honestly, I’m not sure you’ll succeed,” said the kit.</p><p>“You know what happened to the fucking useless cat?" growled the elder, feeling up to the challenge. "The clan decided to stop feeding them. First they started letting their prey drag to the ground and get all dusty before bringing it to them. Then no cat would bring them prey. They were starving in the middle of camp and they were too weak for an honorable death in the forest. This lasted for days and all the clanmates knew and the apprentices knew and the kits knew. The clan mothers did nothing. The medicine cat looked away.”</p><p>The kits were silent.</p><p>“Then Shadow went out to the forest, all the way to the best hunting spots by the border, and killed big squirrel and brought it back to them without letting it once touch the ground. It was the juicest squirrel. Greenleaf fat. Oozing with blood. She stayed with the cat as they ate and groomed their matted, snarly pelt afterward.”</p><p>The kits exploded with frenzied mews, which was a gross visual for the elder. “Why did Shadow do that? Why did she hunt for a warrior? Why did she bring them the prey all the way from the border? Why did she wash their stinky fur anyway?”</p><p>The elder growled. “Because Shadow’s sixth life was a life of kindness. Or basic feline decency, however you want to look at it. She was kind to a useless cat not because she needed anything from them, but because she could. And she never did get anything back from them. They stayed useless and she shared tongues with them every morning till the end of their miserable life.”</p><p>“Is this just a story so we remember to bring you big juicy squirrels and don’t kick you out of the camp even though you can’t hunt anymore,” asked the cunning kit. The elder was not amused.</p><p>“Shut up,” he rasped.</p><p>“You’re just a lonely, bitter old cat,” belatedly realized one of the kits. The elder hissed.</p><p>“I’ll claw your ears out!” he spat, lunging at the dullwitted kit. “I’ll eat your liver!” he yowled, kicking at the cunning one. “I’ll crunch on your bones!” </p><p>He screamed so loud that the gaggling of kits scattered. An apprentice raced over to herd them away. A clan mother hurried forward to lick their ears and smooth their fluffed fur. The unimpressed medicine cat leveled a disappointed but not surprised look at the elder. The leader said something dumb and the old, grumpy cat was left alone in his dark and moldy part of camp. He curled up on himself, back to the clan.</p><p>Then he felt a soft little paw press against his spine. “What happened in Shadowstar’s tenth life?” whispered a kit.</p><p>The elder let out a long-suffering sigh. “There were only nine, you fool.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Kudos are one fluffy kit, bookmarks are two cunning kits, and comments are a gaggling of fluffballs. </p><p>Joyeux Noël et bonnes fêtes de fin d'année !<br/>Merry Christmas &amp; a Happy New Year etc etc</p></blockquote></div></div>
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